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Is there, on earth, a space so dear,

Upon my breath thy sigh yet faintly hung;
As that within the blessed sphere

Thy name yet died in whispers o'er my tongue;
Two loving arms entwine !

I heard thy lyre, which thou hadst left behind,

In amorous converse with the breathing wind;
For me there's not a lock of jet

Quick to my heart I press'd the shell divine,
Along your temples curl'd,

And, with a lip yet glowing warm from thine,
Within whose glossy, tangled net,

I kiss'd its every chord, while every kiss
My soul doth not, at once, forget

Shed o'er the chord some dewy print of bliss.
All, all the worthless world!

Then soft to thee I touch'd the fervid lyre,
'Tis in your eyes, my sweetest love!

Which told such melodies, such notes of fire
My only worlds I see;

As none but chords, that drank the burning dews
Let but their orbs in sunshine move,

Of kisses dear as ours, could e'er diffuse!
And earth below and skies above

Oh love ! how blissful is the bland repose,
May frown or smile for me!

That soothing follows upon rapture's close,
Like a soft twilight, o'er the mind to shed

Mild melting traces of the transport fled !
ASPASIA.

While thus I lay, in this voluptuous calm, 'Twas in the fair Aspasia's bower,

A drowsy languor steep'd my eyes in balm, That Love and Learning many an hour,

Upon my lap the lyre in murmurs fell,

While, faintly wandering o'er its silver shell, In dalliance met, and Learning smil'd,

My fingers soon their own sweet requiem play'd, With rapture on the playful child, Who wanton stole to find his nest

And slept in music which themselves had made ! Within a fold of Learning's vest !

Then, then, my Theon, what a heavenly dream'

I saw two spirits, on the lunar beam,
There, as the listening statesman hung Two winged boys, descending from above,
In transport on Aspasia's tongue,

And gliding to my bower with looks of love,
The destinies of Athens took

Like the young genii, who repose their wings Their colour from Aspasia's look.

All day in Amatha's luxurious springs,' Oh happy time! when laws of state,

And rise at midnight, from the tepid rill When all that rul'd the country's fate, To cool their plumes upon some moon-light hill! Its glory, quiet, or alarms,

Soft o'er my brow, which kindled with their sighs, Was plann'd between two snowy arms ! Awhile they play'd; then gliding through my eyes, Sweet times ! you could not always last

(Where the bright babies, for a moment, hung, And yet, oh! yet, you are not past;

Like those thy lip hath kiss'd, thy lyre hath sung, Though we have lost the sacred mould,

To that dim mansion of my breast they stole, In which their men were cast of old,

Where, wreath'd in blisses lay my captive soul. Woman, dear woman, still the same,

Swift at their touch dissolv'd the ties that clung While lips are balm, and looks are flame,

So sweetly round her, and aloft she sprung! While man possesses heart or eyes,

Exulting guides, the little genii flew Woman's bright empire never dies !

Through paths of light, refresh'd with starry dew,

And fann'd by airs of that ambrosial breath, Fanny, my love, they ne'er shall say,

On which the free soul banquets after death! That beauty's charm hath pass'd away ;

Thou know'st, my love, beyond our clouded skies, No-give the universe a soul Attun'd to woman's soft control,

As bards have dream'd, the spirits' kingdom lies. And FANNY hath the charm, the skill,

Through that fair clime a sea of ether rolls? To wield a universe at will!

Gemm'd with bright islands, where the hallow'd souls, two floating, luminous islands, in which the spirits of the

blessed reside. Accordingly we find that the word 22xsevos THE GRECIAN GIRL'S DREAM OF THE

was sometimes synonymous with aing, and death was not

unfrequently called Q na cvoro mogos, or “the passage of the BLESSED ISLANDS.'

1 Eunapius, in his life of Jamblichus, tells us of two TO HER LOYER,

beautiful little spirits or loves, which Jamblichus raised by enchantment from the warm springs at Gadara; "dicens

astantibus (says the author of the Dii Fatidici, p. 160) illos χι τε καλος

esse loci Genios:" which words however are not in ÉunaΠυθαγορας, οσσοι τε χορον στηριξαν ερωτος.

pius. Απολλων περι Πλωτιν8. Oracul. Metric. I find from Cellarius, that Amatha, in the neighbourhood a Joan. Opsop. Collecta. of Gardara, was also celebrated for its warm springs, and I

have preferred it as a more poetical name than Gadara.

Cellarius quotes Hieronymus. Est et alia villa in vicinia Was it the moon, or was it morning's ray,

Gadaræ nomine Amatha, ubi calidæ aquæ erumpunt."That call'd thee, dearest, from these arms away? Geograph. Antiq. Lib. iii. cap. 13.

2 This belief of an ocean in the heavens, or“ waters above I linger'd still, in all the murmuring rest,

the firmament,” was one of the many physical errors in The languor of a soul too richly blest !

which the early fathers bewildered themselves. Le P. Baltus,

in his “Defense des saints Pères accusés de Platonisme," 1“ It was imagined by some of the ancients that there is taking it for granted that the ancients were more correct in an ethereal ocean above us, and that the sun and moon are their notions, (which by no means appears from what I have

ocean."

Whom life hath wearied in its race of hours
Repose for ever in unfading bowers!
That very orb, whose solitary light

So often guides thee to my arms at night,
s no chill planet, but an isle of love,

loating, in splendour, through those seas above!
Thither, I thought, we wing'd our airy way,
Mild o'er its valleys stream'd a silvery day,
While, all around, on lily beds of rest,
Reclin'd the spirits of the immortal Blest!1
Oh! there I met those few congenial maids,
Whom love hath warm'd, in philosophic shades;
There still Leontium2 on her sage's breast,
Found lore and love, was tutor'd and caress'd;
And there the twine of Pythias'' gentle arms
Repaid the zeal which deified her charms!
The Attic Master,4 in Aspasia's eyes
Forgot the toil of less endearing ties ;
While fair Theano," innocently fair,

Play'd with the ringlets of her Samian's hair."

already quoted) adduces the obstinacy of the fathers in this whimsical opinion, as a proof of their repugnance to even truth from the hands of the philosophers. This is a strange way of defending the fathers, and attributes much more than they deserve to the philosophers. For an abstract of this work of Baltus, (the opposer of Fontenelle, Van Dale, etc. in the famous oracle controversy) see "Bibliotheque des Auteurs Ecclésiast. du 18. siècle," 1 Part. Tom. ii.

1 There were various opinions among the ancients with respect to their lunar establishment; some make it an elysium, and others a purgatory; while some suppose it to be a kind of entrepôt between heaven and earth, where souls which had left their bodies, and those which were on their way to join them, were deposited in the valleys of Hecate,

and remained till further orders. Τοις περι σεληνην αερό λέγειν αυτάς κατοικείν, και απ' αυτής κάτω χωρειν εἰς IN THE TERIYELOV ysveriv. Stob. lib. 1. Eclog. Physic.

Who, fix'd by love, at length was all her own,
And pass'd his spirit through her lips alone!

Oh Samian sage! whate'er thy glowing thought
Of mystic Numbers hath divinely wrought;
The One that 's form'd of Two who dearly love,
Is the best number heaven can boast above!
But think, my Theon, how this soul was thrill'd,
When near a fount, which o'er the vale distill'd,
My fancy's eye beheld a form recline,
Of lunar race, but so resembling thine,
That, oh!-'twas but fidelity in me,
To fly, to clasp, and worship it for thee!
No aid of words the unbodied soul requires,
To waft a wish, or embassy desires;
But, by a throb to spirits only given,
By a mute impulse, only felt in heaven,
Swifter than meteor shaft through summer skies,
From soul to soul the glanc'd idea flies!

We met-like thee the youthful vision smil'd;
But not like thee, when passionately wild,
Thou wak'st the slumbering blushes of my cheek,
By looking things thyself would blush to speak!
No! 'twas the tender, intellectual smile,
Flush'd with the past and yet serene the while,
Of that delicious hour when, glowing yet,
Thou yield'st to nature with a fond regret,
And thy soul, waking from its wilder'd dream,
Lights in thine eye a mellower, chaster beam!

Oh my beloved! how divinely sweet
Is the pure joy, when kindred spirits meet!
Th' Elean god, whose faithful waters flow,
With love their only light, through caves below,

2 The pupil and mistress of Epicurus, who called her his "dear little Leontium" (Asovrov) as appears by a frag-Wafting in triumph all the flowery braids, ment of one of his letters in Laertius. This Leontium was And festal rings, with which Olympic maids a woman of talent; " she had the impudence (says Cicero) Have deck'd their billow, as an offering meet to write against Theophrastus;" and, at the same time. Cicero gives her a name which is neither polite nor transTo pour at Arethusa's crystal feet! lateable," Meretricula etiam Leontium contra Theophras-Think, when he mingles with his fountain-bride tum scribere ausa est."-De Natur. Deor. She left a What perfect rapture thrills the blended tide! daughter called Danae, who was just as rigid an Epicurean as her mother; something like Wieland's Danae in Agathon. Each melts in each, till one pervading kiss It would sound much better, I think, if the name were Confound their current in a sea of bliss! Leontia, as it occurs the first time in Laertius; but M. Me- 'Twas thusnage will not hear of this reading.

3 Pythias was a woman whom Aristotle loved, and to whom after her death he paid divine honours, solemnizing her memory by the same sacrifices which the Athenians offered to the goddess Ceres. For this impious gallantry the philosopher was, of course, censured; it would be well however if some of our modern Stagirites had a little of this superstition about the memory of their mistresses.

4 Socrates; who used to console himself in the society of Aspasia for those "less endearing ties" which he found at home with Xantippe. For an account of this extraordinary creature, Aspasia, and her school of erudite luxury at Athens, see L'Histoire de l'Académie, etc. Tom. xxxi. p. 69. Ségur rather fails on the subject of Aspasia. Femmes." Tom. i. p. 122.

"Les

The author of the "Voyage du Monde de Descartes" has also placed these philosophers in the moon, and has allotted Seigneuries to them, as well as to the astronomers; (2 part. p. 143.) but he ought not to have forgotten their wives and mistresses; "curæ non ipsà in morte relinquunt."

But, Theon, 'tis a weary theme,
And thou delight'st not in my lingering dream.
Oh! that our lips were, at this moment, near,
And I would kiss thee into patience, dear!
And make thee smile at all the magic tales
Of star-light bowers and planetary vales,
Which my fond soul, inspir'd by thee and love,
In slumber's loom hath exquisitely wove.
But no; no more-soon as to-morrow's ray
O'er soft Ilissus shall dissolve away,
I'll fly, my Theon, to thy burning breast,
And there in murmurs tell thee all the rest :
Then if too weak, too cold the vision seems,
Thy lip shall teach me something more than dreams!

5 There are some sensible letters extant under the name of this fair Pythagorean. They are addressed to her female friends upon the education of children, the treatment of ser- among those ancients who were obliged to have recourse to vants, etc. One, in particular, to Nicostrata, whose hus- the "coma apposititia." L'Hist. des Perruques, Chap I. band had given her reasons for jealousy, contains such truly considerate and rational advice, that it ought to be translated for the edification of all married ladies. See Gale's Opuscul. Myth. Phys. p. 741.

6 Pythagoras was remarkable for fine hair, and Doctor Thiers (in his Histoire des Perruques) seems to take it for granted it was all his own, as he has not mentioned him

1 The river Alpheus; which flowed by Pisa or Olympia, and into which it was customary to throw offerings of dif ferent kinds, during the celebration of the Olympic games. In the pretty romance of Clitophon and Leucippe, the river is supposed to carry these offerings as bridal gifts to the fountain Arethusa. Και επι την Αρέθεσαν ετω τον Αλφειον vuμQaSTORS OTαν BY TWV OXUμTIWY SOGтn, x. T.λ. Lib

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A DREAM.

“When he illumes her magic urn,
THE SENSES.

And sheds his own enchantments in it,
Though but a minute's space it burn,

'Tis heaven to breathe it but a minute!
IMBOWER'd in the vernal shades,
And circled all by rosy fences,

“ Not all the purest power we boast, I saw the five luxurious maids,

Not silken touch, nor vernal dye, Whom mortals love, and call THE SENSES. Nor music, when it thrills the most,

Nor balmy cup, nor perfume's sigh, Many and blissful were the ways,

In which they seem'd to pass their hours- “Such transport to the soul can give, One wander'd through the garden's maze,

Though felt till time itself shall wither, Inhaling all the soul of flowers ;

As in that one dear moment live,

When Love conducts our sister hither!"
Like those, who live upon the smell
Of roses, by the Ganges' stream,'

She ceas'd—the air respir’d of bliss,
With perfume from the flowret’s bell,

A languor slept in every eye ; She fed her life's ambrosial dream!

And now the scent of Cupid's kiss

Declar'd the melting power was nigh!
Another touch'd the silvery lute,
To chain a charmed sister's ear,

I saw them come—the nymph and boy,
Who hung beside her, still and mute,

In twisted wreaths of rapture bound; Gazing as if her eyes could hear !

I saw her light the urn of joy,

While all her sisters languish'd round! The nymph who thrill'd the warbling wire,

A sigh from every bosom brokeWould often raise her ruby lip,

I felt the flames around me glide, As if it pouted with desire

Till with the glow I trembling woke, Some cooling, nectar'd draught to sip.

And found myself by FANNY's side! Nor yet was she, who heard the lute,

Unmindful of the minstrel maid, But press’d the sweetest, richest fruit

THE STEERSMAN'S SONG. To bathe her ripe lip as she play'd!

WRITTEN ABOARD THE BOSTON FRIGATE 28th APRIL. But, oh! the fairest of the group Was one, who in the sunshine lay,

When freshly blows the northern gale, And op'd the cincture's golden loop

And under coursers snug we fly; That hid her bosom's panting play!

When lighter breezes swell the sail,

And royals proudly sweep the sky; And still her gentle hand she stole

'Longside the wheel, unwearied still Along the snows, so smoothly orb'd,

I stand, and as my watchful eye And look' the while, as if her soul

Doth mark the needle's faithful thrill, Were in that heavenly touch absorb'd!

I think of her I love, and cry,

Port, my boy! port.
Another nymph, who linger'd nigh,
And held a prism of various light,

When calms delay, or breezes blow
Now put the rainbow wonder by,

Right from the point we wish to steer ; To look upon this lovelier sight.

When by the wind close-hauld we go,

And strive in vain the port to near; And still as one's enamour'd touch

I think 'tis thus the Fates defer Adown the lapsing ivory fell,

My bliss with one that's far away, The other's eye, entranc'd as much,

And while remembrance springs to her, Hung giddy o'er its radiant swell!

I watch the sails and sighing say, Too wildly charm'd, I would have fled

Thus, my boy! thus. But she, who in the sunshine lay,

But see! the wind draws kindly aft, Replac'd her golden loop, and said,

All hands are up the yards to square, “ We pray thee for a moment stay.

And now the floating stu’n-sails waft “If true my counting pulses beat,

Our stately ship through waves and air. It must be now almost the hour,

Oh! then I think that yet for me When Love, with visitation sweet,

Some breeze of Fortune thus may spring, Descends upon our bloomy bower.

Some breeze to waft me, love, to thee!

And in that hope I smiling sing, “And with him from the sky he brings

Steady, boy! so.
Our sister-nymph who dwells above-
Oh! never may she haunt these springs,

1 I left Bermuda in the Boston, about the middle of April, With any other god but Love !

in company with the Cambrian and Leander, aboard the latter of which was the Admiral, Sir Andrew Mitchell, who

divides his year between Halifax and Bermuda, and is the 1 Circa fontem Gangis Astomorum gentum ..... halitu very soul of society and good-fellowship to both. tantum viventum et odore quem naribus trahant. Plin. separated in a few days, and the Boston after a short cruise lib vii. cap. 2.

proceeded to New York.

We

TO CLOE.

IMITATED FROM MARTIAL.

Oh dulcet air that vanish'd then!

Can Beauty's sigh recall thee ever! Can Love, himself, inhale again

A breath so precious ? never! never ! Go, maiden, weep—the tears of woe

By Beauty to repentance given, Though bitterly on earth they flow,

Shall turn to fragrant balm in heaven!

I COULD resign that eye of blue,

Howe'er it burn, howe'er it thrill me; And, though your lip be rich with dew,

To lose it, CLOE, scarce would kill me. That snowy neck I ne'er should miss,

However warm I've twin'd about it! And though your bosom beat with bliss,

I think my soul could live without it. In short, I've learn’d so well to fast,

That, sooth my love, I know not whether I might not bring myself at last,

To-do without you altogether!

TO THE FIRE-FLY.' This morning, when the earth and sky

Were burning with the blush of spring, I saw thee not, thou humble fly!

Nor thought upon thy gleaming wing. But now the skies have lost their hue,

And sunny lights no longer play, I see thee, and I bless thee too

For sparkling o'er the dreary way. Oh! let me hope that thus for me,

When life and love shall lose their bloom, Some milder joys may come, like thee,

To light, if not to warm, the gloom!

THE WREATH AND THE CHAIN. I BRING thee, Love, a golden Chain,

I bring thee too a flowery Wreath; The gold shall never wear a stain,

The flow'rets long shall sweetly breathe! Come, tell me which the tie shall be To bind thy gentle heart to me. The Chain is of a splendid thread,

Stol’n from Minerva's yellow hair,
Just when the setting sun had shed

The sober beam of evening there.
The Wreath 's of brightest myrtle wove,

With brilliant tears of bliss among it,
And many a rose-leaf, cull’d by Love,

To heal his lip when bees have stung it!
Come, tell me which the tie shall be,
To bind thy gentle heart to me.
Yes, yes, I read that ready eye,

Which answers when the tongue is loath,
Thou lik'st the form of either tie,

And hold'st thy playful hands for both. Ah !-if there were not something wrong,

The world would see them blended oft; The Chain would make the Wreath so strong !

The Wreath would make the Chain so soft! Then might the gold, the flow'rets be Sweet fetters for my love and me! But, Fanny, so unblest they twine,

That (heaven alone can tell the reason) When mingled thus they cease to shine,

Or shine but for a transient season! Whether the Chain may press too much,

Or that the Wreath is slightly braided, Let but the gold the flow'rets touch,

And all their glow, their tints, are faded ! Sweet Fanny, what would Rapture do,

When all her blooms had lost their grace ? Might she not steal a rose or two,

From other wreaths, to fill their place ?-
Oh! better to be always free,
Than thus to bind my love to thee.

THE VASE. THERE was a vase of odour lay

For many an hour on Beauty's shrine, So sweet that Love went every day

To banquet on its breath divine. And not an eye had ever seen

The fragrant charm the vase conceal'dOh Love! how happy 'twould have been,

If thou hadst ne'er that charm reveal'd!

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But Love, like every other boy,

Would know the spell that lurks within ;
He wish'd to break the crystal toy,

But Beauty murmur'd “'twas a sin !"
He swore, with many a tender plea,

That neither heaven or earth forbad it ;
She told him, Virtue kept the key,

And look'd as if she wish'd he had it!
He stole the key when Virtue slept,

(E’en she can sleep, if Love but ask it!)
And Beauty sigh’d, and Beauty wept,

While silly Love unlock'd the casket. 1 The lively and varying illuminations, with which these fire-flies light up the woods at night, gives quite an idea of enchantment. "Puis ces mouches se développant de l'obscurité de ces arbres et s'approchant de nous, nous les voyions sur les orangers voisins, qu'ils mettaient tout en feu, nous rendant la vue de leurs beaux fruits dorés que la nuit avait ravie,” etc. etc.-See l'Histoire des Antilles, Art. 2. Chap. 4. Liv. 1.

Q

The timid girl now hung her head,

And, as she turn'd an upward glance, I saw a doubt its twilight spread

Along her brow's divine expanse. Just then, the garland's dearest rose

Gave one of its seducing sighs— Oh! who can ask how Fanny chose,

That ever look'd in Fanny's eyes ! “ The Wreath, my life, the Wreath shall be, The tie to bind my soul to thee!"

66

ТО.

Well might the novice hope—the sanguine scheme

Of full perfection prompt his daring dream, And hast thou mark'd the pensive shade, Ere cold experience, with her veteran lore, That many a time obscures my brow,

Could tell him, fools had dream'd as much before! 'Midst all the blisses, darling maid,

But tracing, as we do, through age and clime Which thou canst give, and only thou? The plans of virtue 'midst the deeds of crime, Oh! 'tis not that I then forget

The thinking follies, and the reasoning rage The endearing charms that round me twine

Of man, at once the idiot and the sage; There never throbb'd a bosom yet

When still we see, through every varying frame, Could feel their witchery, like mine!

Of arts and polity, his course the same,

And know that ancient fools but died to make When bashful on my bosom hid,

A space on earth for modern fools to take; And blushing to have felt so blest,

| 'Tis strange, how quickly we the past forget; Thou dost but lift thy languid lid,

That wisdom's self should not be tutor'd yet, Again to close it on my breast !

Nor tire of watching for the monstrous birth Oh! these are minutes all thine own,

Of pure perfection 'midst the sons of earth! Thine own to give, and mine to feel;

Oh! nothing but that soul which God has given, Yet e'en in them, my heart has known

Could lead us thus to look on earth for heaven; The sigh to rise, the tear to steal.

O'er dross without to shed the flame within,

And dream of virtue while we gaze on sin !
For I have thought of former hours,
When he who first thy soul possess'd,

Even here, beside the proud Potomac's stream,
Like me awak'd its witching powers,

Might sages still pursue the flattering theme Like me was lov'd, like me was blest !

Of days to come, when man shall conquer fate, Upon his name thy murmuring tongue

Rise o'er the level of this mortal state, Perhaps hath all as sweetly dwelt;

Belie the monuments of frailty past, For him that snowy lid hath hung

And stamp perfection on this world at last ! In ecstasy, as purely felt !

Here,” might they say, “shall power's divided reign

Evince that patriots have not bled in vain. For him—yet why the past recall

Here godlike liberty's herculean youth, To wither blooms of present bliss !

Cradled in peace, and nurtur'd up by truth
Thou'rt now my own, I clasp thee all,

To full maturity of nerve and mind,
And Heaven can grant no more than this ! Shall crush the giants that bestride mankind !'
Forgive me, dearest, oh! forgive;

Here shall religion's pure and balmy draught,

In form, no more from cups of state be quaff'd; I would be first, be sole to thee;

But flow for all, through nation, rank, and sect, Thou should'st but have begun to live,

Free as that heaven its tranquil waves reflect. The hour that gave thy heart to me.

Around the columns of the public shrine Thy book of life till then effac’d,

Shall growing arts their gradual wreath entwine, Love should have kept that leaf alone, Nor breathe corruption from their flowering braid, On which he first so dearly trac'd

Nor mine that fabric which they bloom to shade. That thou wert, soul and all, my own! No longer here shall justice bound her view,

the
many,

while she rights the few; But take her range through all the social frame,

Pure and pervading as that vital flame,
EPISTLE VI.

Which warms at once our best and meanest part,

And thrills a hair while it expands a heart !"
TO LORD VISCOUNT FORBES.

Oh golden dream! what soul that loves to scan
FROM THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.

The brightness rather than the shades of man,

That own the good, while smarting with the ill ΚΑΙ ΜΗ ΘΑΥΜΑΣΗΙΣ ΜΗΤ' ΕΙ ΜΑΚΡΟΤΕΡΑΝ ΓΕ-And loves the world with all its frailty stillΓΡΑΦΑ ΤΗΝ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗΝ, ΜΗΔ' ΕΙ ΤΙ ΠΕΡΙΕΡΓΟ

What ardent bosom does not spring to meet ΤΕΡΟΝ Η ΠΡΕΣΒΥΤΙΚΩΤΕΡΟΝ ΕΙΡΗΚΑΜΕΝ ΕΑΥΤΗ.

Isocrat. Epist. 4.

The generous hope with all that heavenly heat,

Which makes the soul unwilling to resign If former times had never left a trace,

The thoughts of growing, even on earth, divine ! Of human frailty in their shadowy race,

Yes, dearest FORBES, I see thee glow to think Nor o'er their pathway written, as they ran,

The chain of ages yet may boast a link One dark memorial of the crimes of man;

1 Thus Morse:-" Here the sciences and the arts of ciIf every age, in new unconscious prime,

vilized life are to receive their highest improvements; here Rose, like a phenix, from the fires of time,

civil and religious liberty are to flourish, unchecked by the To wing its way unguided and alone,

cruel hand of civil or ecclesiastical tyranny; here genius, aided The future smiling, and the past unknown

by all the improvements of former ages, is to be exerted in

humanizing mankind, in expanding and enriching their Then ardent man would to himself be new,

minds with religious and philosophical knowledge," etc Earth at his foot, and heaven within his view, etc. p. 569.

Or wrong

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